My next attempt with HDR in real estate
One nice offshoot of my first take with HDR is that another agent asked me to shoot one of his listings. Of course I obliged and was determined to fix some of the things I didn’t like with my earlier shoot. In general, I am pleased with the results.
One thing that I am pleased with in these shots is that I did not blow out the windows as I did before. In my first attempt I was a bit lazy and just set the camera to bracket the exposures. This time, I metered the windows and then metered the darkest part of the room, then took a shot each stop in between. I like the results of this much better.
Of course, there are some things I would like to improve.
In the shot above, I feel the effect of the light on the right is too strong. On one hand, I like the light there. However I do not like the strong light on the wall and I need to figure out eventually a good way to get rid of it.
Kitchens are difficult rooms due to all of the reflections. I think I did decently here, though I would prefer to get rid of the reflection on the floor and the sink is a tad overexposed. I could probably clone out the reflection on the floor, but there are probably better ways. The next time I think I’ll try turning out the lights for one or two shots when I suspect reflections will be an issue. I am curious to see what Photomatix does in this case. Of course, here the reflections were coming from the window so it may not have helped.
One thing I would like to get better at is making the windows ‘pop’ more. I have read about ways to do this using exposure blending and I think I’ll try it out some time. With the pure HDR effect, I feel that the windows are a bit dull, though you can see out of them well.
I’m happy though that this is a step in the right direction. I have several other shoots already planned as Nelya has several more listings coming and a new agent will use me.
Related posts:
- My first stolen photos Well, it was bound to happen at some point or another. Someone has stolen several of my photos. In this case they were real estate photos and ironically are not some of my better photos. Some time ago my wife, who is a real estate agent, had a listing that...
- Playing with some new toys Although we do not celebrate Christmas, that doesn’t mean I did not get any toys… With my birthday earlier in the month and with some spare photography money I received a few things this season and yesterday I finally had the chance to get out and play with them –...
Tags: exposure, HDR, photography, real estate